Tag Archives: curtis l. crisler

Curtis Crisler Reading from Black Achilles

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Curtis L. Crisler, author of Black Achilles (Accents Publishing), spoke to Liz Whiteacre’s class at the University of Indianapolis about “personification” and “persona” in poetry, and he reads several poems from Black Achilles. He describes “persona” as “where the voice of the narrator comes from”. In one poem, he personifies “inconvenience”. The other poems identify the actual narrator of the book, Black Achilles, and are viewed through his perspective.

According to Leslie Anne McIlroy, Black Achilles explores “our love affair with convenience, our ever-growing cloak of invulnerability, our pining for youth, immortality—how we unhinge at its loss.” Black Achilles is currently available from Accents Publishing.

2015—The Authors

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Barbara Headshot 2Barbara Goldberg is the author of four prize-winning books of poetry, including The Royal Baker’s Daughter, winner of the Felix Pollak Poetry Award. She is the translator of Scorched by the Sun, poems by the Israeli poet Moshe Dor. The two selected and translated four anthologies of contemporary Israeli poetry. Goldberg received two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as awards in translation, fiction and speechwriting. Her poems appear in Best American Poetry, Paris Review, Poetry and elsewhere, Goldberg is the series editor of the Word Works’ International Imprint.

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“You Almost Kill Your Mother and Yourself” by Curtis L. Crisler

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on the first snow storm of the year. The state trooper releases
you back into the elements with hardened words after you have
done figure eights on I-69 south. The band saw nurses buzz their

blue beauty of care into your smile. Why are you smiling? The
anesthesiologist blocks your left leg, gives your spine the needle
that numbs your bottom half, all to repair the partially ruptured

tendon named after a demigod. You regurgitate a color wheel
from cheese crackers and sprite, in the face of an unflinching
mother and frenetic nurses. To siphon down your bladder from

the pressure to keep you hydrated, the catheter snaked into the
urethra of your penis by the friendly nurses does not agitate you,
for your bottom half was still comatose. You fill two containers

with the liquid from your insides. You just want to go home to
release more piss. You barely get back into your own driveway.
The snow punishes you like a Saturday bully looking for Sugar

Babies. You want your mother too. To come back down and get
you from your SUV, while you watch ghosts escape your mouth.
The air feels like ice cubes freezing. A neighbor assists in getting

you and your crutches through crunching snow. Left leg’s still
numb from the block. You elevate it against a halo of Christmas
lights. Where is the angel? As you wait for your eyes to blacken.

–Curtis L. Crisler,
Black Achilles
(Accents Publishing)

Curtis L. CrislerCurtis L. Crisler’s forthcoming poetry book, “This” Ameri-can-ah, will be released in 2015 (Cherry Castle Publishing). His books are Pulling Scabs (nominated for a Pushcart), Tough Boy Sonatas (YA), andDreamist: a mixed-genre novel (YA), and his poetry chapbooks areWonderkind, Soundtrack to Latchkey Boy, andSpill. He’s been published in many magazines, journals, and anthologies. He is Associate Professor of English at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, and a Cave Canem Fellow.

“Black Achilles” by Curtis L. Crisler

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Black Achilles by Curtis L. CrislerThis god has fallen
My damn fingers go against me
Work to keep me balanced on new appendages

Crutches guide me now
It is good if I don’t misinterpret my new swagger
How I once feared nothing—heartache, gun shots, tsunamis

I now fear stairs
I have counted them out—13
Down and up, all the superstitions

I have left myself to gain more of myself
Finding myself in another mindset—a carnival game
And like all carnival games, the house was against me

I could not win, have learned the creaky banister a friendly
Like some adventurer it holds me up, as I hear my neighbors’
Voices behind closed doors

I don’t want them to see me like this, flailing, obnoxious
I don’t want their hands of assistance
I want my tendon healed

Zeus cannot see this, so turns his head
Elohim cannot see this, so smiles at me
Kali cannot see this, so empowerment’s limp

The Coyote will not regurgitate the sun, or howl at me
I beseech them all, anything to get back to me
There is no compromise

I must do the work, so I transform into something strange
Something like Doc Octopus, with impediments
Ready to avenge all my shortcomings

–Curtis L. Crisler,
Black Achilles
(Accents Publishing)

Curtis L. CrislerCurtis L. Crisler’s forthcoming poetry book, “This” Ameri-can-ah, will be released in 2015 (Cherry Castle Publishing). His books are Pulling Scabs (nominated for a Pushcart), Tough Boy Sonatas (YA), andDreamist: a mixed-genre novel (YA), and his poetry chapbooks areWonderkind, Soundtrack to Latchkey Boy, andSpill. He’s been published in many magazines, journals, and anthologies. He is Associate Professor of English at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, and a Cave Canem Fellow.

“Overseer” by Curtis L. Crisler

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Black Achilles by Curtis L. Crisler

Inconvenience puts his arms around me. This hug
weighs world-winds and begs like infidelity’s lip-

stick marks. He wants me to learn how to fall again.
There’s no sophistication to hitting the ground. I do

it harder now, not like sad demigods. Now, I aim
for couches, beds, and the carpet instead of linoleum

floors. I am pissant marvelous, distracting a biting
splint in my leg. I never knew walking my obstacle,

and all those in wheelchairs, with canes, with no
limbs make me feel the sacrilege against collagen,

the separating of myself; me against me, my taut
tendon breaking itself in two. Inconvenience puffs

out his chest, proud in making me flounder to the
ground. I heard Inconvenience put hands on Lucifer

to spark fires. He bends me over for reclamation,
to do it all again, to let me know what tender means.

–Curtis L. Crisler,
Black Achilles
(Accents Publishing)

Curtis L. CrislerCurtis L. Crisler’s forthcoming poetry book, “This” Ameri-can-ah, will be released in 2015 (Cherry Castle Publishing). His books are Pulling Scabs (nominated for a Pushcart), Tough Boy Sonatas (YA), and Dreamist: a mixed-genre novel (YA), and his poetry chapbooks are Wonderkind, Soundtrack to Latchkey Boy, andSpill. He’s been published in many magazines, journals, and anthologies. He is Associate Professor of English at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, and a Cave Canem Fellow.

Black Achilles by Curtis L. Crisler

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Black Achilles by Curtis L. Crisler

Black Achilles by Curtis L. Crisler is now available from the Accents store.

Damn … these poems are fiercely human, they call out the names of gods and demigods like reluctant lovers writhing in joy and in pain …

–Frank X Walker
Kentucky Poet Laureate,
Author of Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers

“Such a small wound, such a huge nuisance, death. In Black Achilles, Curtis L. Crisler takes the very human suffering of a torn tendon and uses it to explore our love affair with convenience, our ever-growing cloak of invulnerability, our pining for youth, immortality—how we unhinge at its loss. It is b-ball and score, the opposite of frustration/fragility &ellip; weakness. It is crutches and numbness, swagger and ‘what tender means.’ All this with a deft rim shot, a language of swerves and dunks, rebounds and alley-oops.”

-Leslie Anne Mcilroy,
Managing & Poetry Editor, HEArt,
and author of Slag (Main Street Rag)

“If Achilles is the mythologized Greek warrior-hero from the Trojan War, who is Black Achilles? Curtis L. Crisler’s collection of poems invites the reader to the freeways, playgrounds, and hospitals in search of Black Achilles. He is launching a stale jump shot, removing a stale bandage, limping on stale tendons. His legend is further cemented by his godly ability to ‘still hobble like monsters do’ on one leg. In the inner most soul of these poems, Black Achilles is the body deconstructed. We are moved to ask questions germane to the conversation between science and sport: what are the risks? Or, questions germane to science and ghetto: what are the risks? These poems are visceral; we are uncomfortable in the name of compassion. How do we celebrate the perfect imperfection of the body and its capacity to break? Crisler does this elegantly. The elegance and stable construction of these poems only add to the complex dimensions here. Black Achilles is another gift from a poet who’s gifted at giving.”

–Derrick Harriell,
author of Cotton and Ropes
(Aquarius Press/Willow Books)

ISBN: 978-1-936628-32-2
Softcover, 5½” x 8½”
$8.00
Purchase at the Accents Store

Curtis L. CrislerCurtis L. Crisler’s forthcoming poetry book, “This” Ameri-can-ah,will be released in 2015 (Cherry Castle Publishing). His books are Pulling Scabs (nominated for a Pushcart), Tough Boy Sonatas (YA), and Dreamist: a mixed-genre novel (YA), and his poetry chapbooks are Wonderkind, Soundtrack to Latchkey Boy, andSpill. He’s been published in many magazines, journals, and anthologies. He is Associate Professor of English at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, and a Cave Canem Fellow.